Grammy Museum

Japanese Breakfast is an American indie pop band formed in 2013 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The project is led by vocalist, guitarist, and primary songwriter Michelle Zauner. The band’s current lineup includes musicians Peter Bradley on guitar, Deven Craige on bass, Craig Hendrix on drums, keyboards, and backing vocals, as well as Lauren Baba on violin and Adam Schatz on saxophone, who have been with the ensemble since 2021. Zauner established the band as a side project while she was leading the Philadelphia-based emo group Little Big League. She named the band after seeing a GIF animation of Japanese breakfast, believing the term would seem "exotic" to Americans and provoke curiosity about what a Japanese breakfast entails. In 2014, Zauner returned to Eugene, Oregon, to care for her ill mother. She continued recording music during this period, initially as a means of coping with stress, and later to process grief following her mother’s death. These songs formed the basis of Japanese Breakfast’s debut studio album, Psychopomp, released in 2016 by Yellow K Records.